Religion in Russia
"[10] Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 there has been a revival and spread of Siberian shamanism[11] (often mixed with Orthodox elements[12]), and the emergence of Hinduism[13] and new religious movements throughout Russia.There has been an "exponential increase in new religious groups and alternative spiritualities", Eastern religions and Neopaganism, even among self-defined "Christians"—a term which has become a loose descriptor for a variety of eclectic views and practices.[14] Russia has been defined by the scholar Eliot Borenstein as the "Southern California of Europe" because of such a blossoming of new religious movements, and the latter are perceived by the Russian Orthodox Church as competitors in a "war for souls".[14] However, the multiplicity of religions in Russia has been a traditional component of Russian identities for hundreds of years, contributing to a long-established ethno-cultural pluralism.Czar Nicholas I's ideology, under which the empire reached its widest extent, proclaimed "Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nation" (Pravoslavie, samoderzhavie, narodnost') as its foundations.The dominance of the Russian Orthodox Church was sealed by law, and, as the empire incorporated peoples of alternative creeds, religions were tied to ethnicities to skirt any issue of integration.Until 1905, only the Russian Orthodox Church could engage in missionary activity to convert non-Orthodox people, and apostasy was treated as an offense punishable by law.[20] By the end of the eighteenth century, dvoeverie ("double faith"), popular religion which preserved Slavic pantheism under a Christianised surface, found appreciation among intellectuals who tried to delineate Russian distinctiveness against the West.[20] On April 17, 1905, Tsar Nicholas II decreed that religious minorities had the right to publicly celebrate their respective liturgies.[21] At the dawn of the twentieth century, esoteric and occult philosophies and movements, including Spiritualism, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Hermeticism, Russian cosmism and others, became widespread.[22] At the same time the empire had begun to make steps towards the recognition of the multiplicity of religions that it had come to encompass, but they came to an abrupt end with the Russian Revolution in 1917.[23] After the revolution, the Russian Orthodox Church lost its privileges, as did all minority religions, and the new state verged towards an atheist official ideology.[25] The Russian Orthodox Church was supported under Joseph Stalin in the 1940s, after the Second World War, then heavily suppressed under Nikita Khrushchev in the 1960s, and then revived again by the 1980s.[23] During the Soviet period, religious barriers were shattered, as religions were no longer tied to ethnicity and family tradition, and an extensive displacement of peoples took place.For instance, the Russian Orthodox Church is eager to register its communities when they are still at the embryonal stage, and many of them are actually inactive; the Old Believers traditionally do not consider registration as essential, and some branches reject it in principle; and Protestant churches have the largest number of unregistered congregations, probably around ten thousand, most of them extremely small groups, and while many denominations discourage registration, they often also face a negative disposition from secular authorities.In the final years of the empire they constituted 10% of the population of Russia, while today their number has shrunk to far less than 1% and there are few descendants of Old Believers' families who feel a cultural link with the faith of their ancestors.[3] The number of "ethnic Catholics" in Russia, that is to say Poles and Germans, and smaller minorities, is continually declining due to deaths, emigration, and secularisation.[3] Paganism and Tengrism, counted together as "traditional religions of the forefathers"[34] were the third-largest religious group after Christianity and Islam, with 1,700,000 believers or 1.2% of the total population of Russia in 2012.[5] Tengrism is a term which encompasses the traditional ethnic and shamanic religions of the Turkic and Mongolic peoples, and modern movements reviving them in Russia.Although paganism often faces the hostility of the Orthodox clergy, Patriarch Alexy II stressed that Protestant missionaries pose a greater danger than ethnic religions, and the latter should be respected.In 2012, 13% of the inhabitants of the Altai Republic believed in indigenous religions—which include Burkhanism or "White Faith"[75]—, like 13% in Yakutia, 8% in Tuva, 3% in Kalmykia, between 2% and 3% in Khakassia, Buryatia and Kamchatka.There are many Russian converts, and the newer schools have been often criticised by representatives of the Gelug as the result of a Russianised (Rossiysky) Buddhism and of Western Buddhist missionaries.Yazidi communities are registered in Yekaterinburg, Irkutsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Tula, Ulyanovsk, Yaroslavl and Krasnodar Krai.[86] Zoroastrianism is practised in Russia by a number of recent Russian converts, though the religion was historically influent in the region of the Northern Caucasus, among the Scythians and later in Alania and Caucasian Albania.Most of them are indeed "amorphous, eclectic and fluid",[67] difficult to measure, concerned with health, healing, and lifestyle, made up of fragments borrowed from Eastern religions like Buddhism, Hinduism and yoga.According to Filatov and Lunkin, these movements, albeit mostly unorganised, represent a "self-contained system" rather than a "transitional stage on the way to some other religion".[93] Other movements rely upon astrology, which is believed by about 60% of Russians, emphasising the imminent start of the Age of Aquarius, the end of the world as it is currently known, and the formation of a superior "Aquarian race"....Those policies, ranging from administrative harassment to arbitrary imprisonment to extrajudicial killing, are implemented in a fashion that is systematic, ongoing, and egregious".[99][100] In 2011, a group linked to the Russian Orthodox Church demanded a ban of the Bhagavad-Gītā As It Is, the book of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, in Tomsk Oblast, on charge of extremism.[102] To protest the attempted ban, 15,000 Indians in Moscow, and followers of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness throughout Russia, appealed to the government of India asking an intervention to resolve the issue.
Russian OrthodoxyChristianNo religionSt. Basil's Russian Orthodox CathedralMoscowWorld Heritage SiteOrthodox ChristianityRussianon-religious peopleconstitution of Russiahistory of RussiaChristianityBuddhismJudaismethnic religionsCathedral of Christ the SaviourRussian Orthodox ChurchSiberiaProtestantRussian RevolutionCatholic Churchterritorial jurisdictionsJehovah's WitnessesInternational Christian ConcernSoviet UnionSiberian shamanismHinduismnew religious movementsEastern religionsNeopaganismEliot Borenstein2020 amendments to the Constitution of RussiaConstitutional references to GodViktor VasnetsovSlavic paganismChristianisation of Kievan Rus'religion in the Soviet UnionRussiansSlavic religionPrimary ChronicleKievan Rus'Vladimir the GreatByzantine EmpiremysticismRussian EmpireNicholas IethnicitiesCatholicismOld BelieversPatriarch NikonRaskolSpiritual ChristianityGnosticJakob BöhmethoughtTsar Nicholas IIesotericoccultSpiritualismTheosophyAnthroposophyHermeticismRussian cosmismatheist official ideologyJoseph StalinSecond World WarNikita Khrushchevamendments of 2020 to the constitutionSaint George and the DragonTobolskThe Rebellion of Solovetsky MonasterySergey MiloradovichTemple of All ReligionsLutheranismatheistsProtestantismEasterTrinity SundayreincarnationNew Ageself-identification2010 Censusfederal subjects of RussiaChristiansArmenianGeorgianOrthodox Old BelieversProtestantsCatholicsMuslimsSunni IslamShia Islamunaffiliated MuslimspagansRodnoveryAssianismTengristsTurco-MongolShamanicBuddhistsTibetan schoolsHindusKrishnaitesreligious Jewsnot religious"believe in God (or in a higher power)" but to "not profess any particular religion"Eastern Orthodox ChristianityAtheistfederal districts of RussiaCentralNorthwesternSouthernNorth CaucasianSiberianFar EasternChechnyaIngushetiaAdygeaBashkortostanBuryatiaChuvashiaDagestanKabardino-BalkariaKalmykiaKarachay-Cherkessia Karelia